Field
This disclosure relates generally to the field of wireless communications and more specifically to the system and methods for determining indoors or outdoors location of mobile devices in a femtocell.
Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, etc.). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like. Additionally, the systems can conform to specifications such as third generation partnership project (3GPP), 3GPP long term evolution (LTE), ultra mobile broadband (UMB), evolution data optimized (EV-DO), etc.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems may simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device may communicate with one or more base stations (e.g., which can be commonly referred as macro nodes). To supplement conventional base stations, additional low power base stations (e.g., which can be commonly referred as femto nodes cells or pico nodes) can be deployed to provide more robust wireless coverage to mobile devices. For example, low power base stations can be deployed for incremental capacity growth, richer user experience, in-building or other specific geographic coverage, and/or the like.
Femto nodes are often installed by users in their homes, offices, buildings and other indoors environments without consideration of the overall wireless network infrastructure. In a closed access femtocell deployments, a femto node typically targets its coverage indoor and chooses a radio frequency (RF) channel/band where it measures least signal strength from neighboring macrocells and femtocells in order to avoid interference. In an open access femtocell deployments, a femto node may select the same RF channel/band as neighboring femtocells and macrocells to achieve better frequency reuse, but this may lead to interference issues in high density femtocell deployments. Therefore, improvements in the operation of femto nodes are desired.